Turtlebot Boot issue

[Mitchell-Fisher]

Robot Model

Turtlebot4 Standard

ROS distro

Humble

Networking Configuration

I do not know

OS

Ubuntu 22.04

Built from source or installed?

Installed

Package version

Unknown / unable to check because robot will not boot or connect. Using TurtleBot 4 Standard Humble SD image: turtlebot4_standard_humble_1.0.5.img

Type of issue

Other

Expected behaviour

Unknown / unable to check because robot will not boot or connect. Using TurtleBot 4 Standard Humble SD image: turtlebot4_standard_humble_1.0.5.img

Actual behaviour

I was able to connect to the Turtlebot, complete setup, and run a YOLO model on the Raspberry Pi; however, a day when booting up the Turtlebot, it didn't boot properly and I was unable to ssh into the turtlebot. The LED screen does not turn on, even though it is powered in and Lidar is spinning. I've tried restarting the Turtlebot, but that doesn't fix the issue. I tried reimaging the micro SD card, but that did not solve the issue.

Error messages

I have Ubuntu 2022 running in a docker, which normally is able to connect to the Turtlebot, but not anymore.

root@jclab005-Alienware-Aurora-R13:/# ssh ubuntu@10.128.207.168
ssh: connect to host 10.128.207.168 port 22: No route to host

To Reproduce

1. Connect Turtlebot to power to turn on.
2. Wait for boot
3. Boot appears to fail. Create 3 light ring is solid red for a few seconds during boot.
4. Robot is on, but LED is not lit up.

Other notes

Also, I have 2 turtlebot 4 standard robots in my lab and both have run into this issue, though at separate times. I'm unsure what the root cause is. I'm not sure if there is something that I did to cause this issue or if the SD card was corrupted for both robots.

Here is the SD card image terminal logs

mitch@jclab005-Alienware-Aurora-R13:~$ bash sd_flash.sh /home/mitch/Downloads/turtlebot4_humble_standard_1.0.5/turtlebot4_standard_humble_1.0.5.img
Image path: /home/mitch/Downloads/turtlebot4_humble_standard_1.0.5/turtlebot4_standard_humble_1.0.5.img
Enter each SD card device name separated with a space (i.e. sda sdb sdc): sdc
The SD card(s) will be unmounted and flashed. Press enter to continue.
umount: /dev/sdc: not mounted.
umount: /media/mitch/system-boot: target is busy.
umount: /dev/sdc2: not mounted.
[97% of 8666Mb] 8448 blocks (8448Mb) written. 00:00:00 remaining.
8666+1 records in
8666+1 records out

[smatarCPR]

Hello @Mitchell-Fisher
Thank you for reaching out on the Turtlebot Github page. I am very sorry to hear that your unit is not meeting expectations. Based on these details I have the following questions/recommendations:

• When powering on, are you able to observe any lights on the Raspberry Pi and/or the PCBA on the top plate? Look through the window where the USB cables are.
• If you connect to the Raspberry Pi via ethernet do the activity lights on the ethernet port come on? Is it able to respond to ping requests? - https://turtlebot.github.io/turtlebot4-user-manual/troubleshooting/faq.html#access-the-raspberry-pi-over-ethernet
• When flashing the microSD card, when the command lsblk -d -e7 is run, what is the output?
• From the log output, it looks as though the SD card has multiple partitions, some of which are unmounted during the install process. Are you able to try flashing the SD card on a machine running Ubuntu natively rather than through the Docker?

Let me know the results of these checks. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Best Regards,
Saif

[smatarCPR]

Hello @Mitchell-Fisher
To add to my message, with regards to the red ring iRobot Create 3, this typically indicates the robot has entered a general fault condition (“Robot error. Cycle power.”). Since the TurtleBot 4 uses the Create 3 as its base, the issue is usually recoverable with the steps below.
Please try the following in order:

1. Power cycle the robot

Hold the Create 3 center power button for about 7 seconds until it powers down.
Wait 15–30 seconds.
Place the robot back on the charging dock or reconnect external power.

2. Force a reboot

If the robot is unresponsive, hold the center button for approximately 20–30 seconds.
Watch for the spinning white boot animation and startup sound.

3. Allow the battery to charge

Remove the battery from the Create 3 unit to reset its BMS system. To do so, loosen the 5 screws found on the bottom:

After reconnecting the battery , leave the robot docked for at least 30 minutes before retrying.
Low battery or unstable battery voltage can sometimes trigger this fault state.

4. Attempt AP mode access

Hold Buttons 1 + 2 on the Create 3 until the light ring spins cyan.
Connect to the robot hotspot (Create-XXXX)
Open 192.168.10.1 in a browser
If accessible, verify the robot firmware state and update firmware if needed.

Let me know how these recommendations work for you. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Best Regards,
Saif

[Mitchell-Fisher]

Hi Saif, thanks for your response. I followed your steps 1, 2, and 3. Step 2 wasn't necessary because the robot did fully boot up, even though the LED screen did not light up and the Raspberry Pi didn't appear to boot correctly.

For step 4, I was able to connect to the robot's hotspot and updated the software to the latest ROS 2 Humble (H.2.6).

The Raspberry Pi still doesn't seem to boot properly. I tried connecting to the Raspberry Pi over ethernet, but was unable to connect or ping the IP address 192.168.185.3.

Here are my responses to your first comment.

1. There is a red led that looks like "PWR" and another led for "ACT". The red light remains lit, and the green ACT LED lights up briefly, but then remains off. The robot still gives the solid red circle about halfway through the bootup of the whole robot.
2. When connected to ethernet, the port green and yellow lights are lit up. However, when I follow the steps in setup instructions and try to ssh into the Raspberry Pi, it says "No route to host".
3. Here is the command output:

mitch@jclab005-Alienware-Aurora-R13:~$ lsblk -d -e7
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
sdb 8:16 1 0B 0 disk
sdc 8:32 1 29.7G 0 disk
nvme1n1 259:0 0 3.6T 0 disk
nvme0n1 259:1 0 953.9G 0 disk

4. I reflashed the SD card and here are the results:

mitch@jclab005-Alienware-Aurora-R13:~$ bash sd_flash.sh.1 /home/mitch/Downloads/turtlebot4_humble_standard_1.0.5/turtlebot4_standard_humble_1.0.5.img
Image path: /home/mitch/Downloads/turtlebot4_humble_standard_1.0.5/turtlebot4_standard_humble_1.0.5.img
Enter each SD card device name separated with a space (i.e. sda sdb sdc): sdc
The SD card(s) will be unmounted and flashed. Press enter to continue.
umount: /dev/sdc: not mounted.
umount: /dev/sdc1: not mounted.
umount: /dev/sdc2: not mounted.
[97% of 8666Mb] 8448 blocks (8448Mb) written. 00:00:00 remaining.
8666+1 records in
8666+1 records out

My computer runs Ubuntu 24.04, but I use a docker with Ubuntu 22.04 when I was able to connect to the Turtlebot. When flashing the SD card, I am not inside the docker.

I reinserted the SD card and turned on the Turtlebot. Like before, on the Raspberry Pi, the red LED was on, and the green LED blinked for a moment but then the red robot light ring was shown and I am still unable to connect the to turtlebot.